The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths

Tories in power, rising unemployment, tax breaks for the rich and an enlarging north-south divide - it's like the eighties never ended. Anyone who awakes from a thirty year coma could be forgiven for thinking that they hadn't been away that long. But that joke isn't funny anymore and no-one's laughing - at this rate of decline the Thatcher Years are going to seem like Halcyon Days. An achievement. A nightmare. The NHS under attack, gifting money to greedy bankers, whilst jobs are cut from essential public services. To quote a speech made by Neil Kinnock,

"I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment....I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to get old".

That could have been written yesterday. Yes the eighties have returned and greed and selfishness are back on the Government's agenda.

So onto The Smiths second best album. A masterpiece, as usual from the northern quartet, and one that continues to resonate twenty five years later, particularly on the opening title track. Never have Morrissey's lyrics and Marr's music sounded so angry, bitter and playful all at the same time.

Oh has the world changed, or have I changed?
Some nine year old tough who peddles drugsI swear to God, I swear I never even knew what drugs were
So I broke into the Palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner she said, "Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing"
I said, "that's nothing - you should hear me play piano"

Elsewhere there are classic pop tunes; 'Big Mouth Strikes Again', 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and the sublime 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. They don't make 'em like they used to. 

But let's hope that the eighties parallels don't stop with a spiteful Government. Perhaps the one silver lining is that albums will become important again, bands will start to mean something and unrest and disquiet will be channelled into a positive and growing force for change. Now that's what I'd call music.